Christmas Round-up

Just a little update of current writery stuff:

The Twelve Doctors of Christmas is also available as an audio book, and I’m lucky enough to have the brilliant Sophie Aldred and Adjoa Andoh reading my stories. The book seems to be going down well, and the latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine (#507) says some extremely nice things about it, including (oh I’m soooo shameless) that my Third Doctor story is ‘funny… clever and cheeky, and probably the peak of this collection’. YMM – and probably will – V – but it made me feel all glowy inside anyway, so thank you, DWM.

It looks like The Highgate Horror is out at last, despite confusing release dates. It’s a collection of Doctor Who comic strips including my own Witch Hunt (Clara Oswald’s comic swansong), with added commentary from writers and artists, and it gets a lovely review from top comic website DowntheTubes: http://downthetubes.net/?p=35551

Something rather exciting: I was asked to contribute a story to a science-fiction anthology to be published next year by Snowbooks, and I did so, a little tale called My Last Death, which turned out to be one of my favourite things by me. It’s actually fairly rare for me to like my own stuff, so this feels rather nice – as does appearing alongside names such as Storm Constantine and the late Tanith Lee (I mean, how cool is that?) Editor Scott Harrison is running a series of guest blog entries building up to publication where the contributors talk about their early influences, how they work etc., and mine should be up there later today: http://scottvharrison.blogspot.co.uk The anthology is called Frontier Worlds and is described thus:

“Earth is no longer humanity’s only home. Slowly they have colonised the galaxy, spreading ever outwards into the darkest reaches of Terran space. To some Earth is now a myth, a fairy-tale; stories told to them by their grand parents when they were children. To others the Earth is still the place they call home: a bleak, inescapable fact that must be endured in order to survive.

In this exciting collection of stories chronicling the turbulent events of humanity’s struggle for survival six hundred years in our future, some of today’s leading science fiction writers take us from the vast depths of uncharted space to the surface of a shockingly different planet Earth, where civilisation is desperately trying to preserve the last shreds of its human identity.”

But before the Earth gets too bleak and while you still have a bit of your human identity left, let me wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy and non-turbulent New Year ❤️